Russ Viola

The old man tells his tales of days long gone.
He sim­ply wants an audi­ence to val­i­date his life-song.

He’s real.
He’s here.
He’s heard,
far and near.

Does this make his life more or less than what it was?

Lan­guage damns and lim­its.
It erects walls and pushes chasms of mis­un­der­stand­ing between them.
It is the favored tool of manip­u­la­tors and politi­cians.
The boon com­pan­ion of con­fi­dence men.

We fall prey to its decep­tions daily.
Strug­gling to under­stand and make our­selves under­stood.
What we mean, fil­ters through what we say.
What we say, changes what we mean.
What we meant to say gets lost.

This imper­fect tool betrays us time and again.
We still per­sist to wor­ship at its altar.
Syl­la­ble and con­so­nant,
Adjec­tive and adverb,
Loqua­cious largesse, inflat­ing our value.
It is all we have.

Or is it?
Can we stop talk­ing and start lis­ten­ing?
Can we give up the quest for the Word,
And pick up the quest for the Heart?
I think we can.